Yes, >> you do that. I didn't know you did that. sold that four years ago, including the the building sale, keeping selling the business. And then they came kind of at the last minute said, "Can we
buy the building, too? basically pass the games to go. I think they're on that block and on that side of the street. They're right on the corner. It's a Every time used to be What does she have to press? >> Middle button with the three dots. Make
sure that that is not >> There you go. >> There you go. >> Good morning everybody. Um it's a beautiful morning and we are here to um have our annual meeting of the more city of Morehead Charter Commission and first
um we're going to call do the roll call. So I'll start and we will go to my left and then go around in a circle like this. So Martha Castan and I am the chairperson for the city of Morehead Charter Commission.
Amanda Gory, Tracy Peters, >> Chris Wellie, W two. >> Mosha Peterson, >> Mark Voxland, W three. >> Bob Seagull. Ward four. >> Hillary Ray, ward one.
Now, Laura Hogan Christensen. I'm Ward One. Yes. And we have from the city of Morehead. >> Yes. I'm Mike Reits. I'm the assistant city manager. >> Katherine McNamera, city attorney.
>> Christina Rust, city clerk. >> All right. Welcome everybody. So um our first order of business is the election of charter um commission officers which is the chair, vice chair and secretary.
I have been the chair for the past two terms and I would welcome somebody else to take on this position. If there's any am nominations please um say who you would like to nominate or if you want to nominate yourself that would be great.
Anyone interested in being the chairperson? >> I would nominate myself if that's if the committee would entertain that motion. Um >> I welcome that motion. If >> someone else is interested, that's completely fine. But I I would be
willing to do that. >> Second. >> All right. We have a motion for Amanda. Uh >> Tracy, I am so sorry. No, it's okay for Tracy um to be the chairperson of this um committee.
>> Is there anyone else that is interested? >> I would move that nominations cease. >> Is there a second for this motion? >> I second. >> Okay. >> All those in favor of Tracy u being the chairperson
say I. >> I. >> I. Hi. >> All right, Tracy. >> Congratulations. >> Thank you. >> All right, so now we move on to the vice chair. Are there any nominations >> for the vice chair?
>> I'd like I'd like to confirm that I'm the vice chair and I I'm willing to stay the vice chair. >> Okay. Is there a second to um continue? >> This is uh Chris Willie. I'll second. All right. Um, all those in favor?
>> I >> I >> All right. Congratulations. Now we will move on to the secretary. Are there any nominations for the secretary? >> And excuse me, but who is the current secretary right now? >> We currently don't have one. Um, it was
a previous member who has been replaced now. So >> Oh, okay. Okay. Um question. >> Yes. >> What does the secretary do? >> I believe she takes um minutes um
reviews the minutes that are being written and then finalizes them to be submitted to the um um charter committee. Is that correct? >> Essentially I do everything for you. You just do this to me every time and Yeah.
Yeah, >> it's the easiest position there is. >> Yeah, sure. I'll nominate myself then. >> Okay, great. >> So, is there a second? >> All right. So, um all those in favor um
for and I'm so sorry I can't see your name. Amanda >> Amanda Gory. uh for Amanda Gory to uh be the secretary. All those in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? I don't see none. Thank you so much and congratulations on your new
positions. So now we move on to the approval of the April 16th, 2025 minutes. And I must confess I don't have them with me. Um >> other side of your agenda. >> Oh, just flip it over. Sorry. >> Oh, thank you.
Has anyone had a chance to review the minutes? Is there an approval to >> I move the approval of the minutes as distributed? >> Second. >> There is a second by Mr. Boxland. Um, is there a motion to I'm sorry. The
motion's been made. Um, all those in favor of the approval of the April 16th, 2025 minutes, please say I. I >> I >> I Okay. >> Any opposed? None. Thank you. All right.
So, now we move on to any reports by the chair, officers, commissions, and committees. I must confess, I do not have any reports to share. Um, as far as I know, we do not have any unattended business that we need to take care of.
So, um, are there any reports that need to be made by the city manager or the city attorney? >> Um, yes. Uh, I guess one thing to report, you'll notice, uh, at at your place at the table, um, we've we've
given you a commemorative coin. Um that's to uh uh we we did those to commemorate the city's uh cesqua centennial. Uh the reason I was given this job to tell tell you about your coin is that Christina did not want to
try to say the word cescoentennial. Um, so, uh, so yes, we gave those out to, uh, uh, all of the, uh, all the staff and and folks that are on boards and commissions since since you only meet once a year, uh, you're getting
yours a little later, but, uh, I hope you enjoy those. >> Thank you very much. They're very, very nice. Um, other than that, uh, sort of all quiet on the, uh, on the charter front here in in Morhead these days. So,
>> any reports from the city attorney? >> Nothing from me. Thank you. >> Are there any reports that need to be um, heard? Any other questions? Okay, moving on. Um, the next thing on
the agenda on the agenda, I'm so sorry. Is citizens to be heard? I don't see any other citizens in here. Um, is there any unfinished business that we need to take care of? There is none. Is there any new business
that we need to learn about? Yes. Yes. I don't know if this is something that the charter commission would want to be concerned with after watching Fargo's recent election and noting that a mayor was elected with
less than 25% of the votes cast and uh their commission uh votes are very very horrible but still getting elected said, "Is this something the charter commission in
Morehead would want to look into when we have three, four, five people running for one particular office?" Uh, you could end up with 33, 30, 25%, but that would be your elected margin.
Would we want to delve into that type of question? I say that because I'm termed out, I believe, this year. So, >> I'm dumping it on somebody else if you think you want to do it.
>> Um, is that something something that we could look into? Um, >> I'm looking at the city attorney to see if if if there's anything that prohibits us from looking into >> No, it's something that the commission
could certainly look into and myself and staff could also look to and report back however you wanted to do that. >> Okay. >> Can you expand a little more on your misgivings, please? I don't thoroughly understand your >> if we have three people running for
mayor, which we did in 2013, I believe it was, uh, Del Rey won and she had, I think, 33 or 34% of the votes cast. So the question gets to be do we want a
majority of people voting or do we want a higher threshold than onethird of the votes cast to be elected to the mayor or city council position because I know that's also been the case but the mayor's race I remember so I can throw
that one out. That's the question I have. >> Are you proposing a different voting mechanism like approval voting? I don't understand I guess what the what the pitch is. >> I don't have a pitch. I just was thinking about this meeting yesterday when I was out walking and I thought, you know, we haven't talked about a lot
of different things over the last few years, but watching Fargo, looking at our past history, but also as I've read different news things from around the state of Minnesota, it seems to be more prevalent that you have
more people running for an office, but there isn't a primary and an election and in a city election. I can understand that except the category one cities, but is there something we should maybe do to
get a better vote? And I don't know if we'd want to look at a different type of voting or if we're fine the way we are or do a next week after the main election
followup with the top two vote getters going in. I don't know. >> No, >> it's just a case of is that something we would like to explore? Is that something we feel as a charter commission is enough of a concern we want to look at it? If you if we don't feel like it,
that's fine. I just shouldn't walk so much. >> You do your reading when you walk. I don't I read >> No, it's my it's it's trying >> your thinking time. >> I'm I'm just trying to get my neurons to work again so I think of different things. Very good. Um
I I I'm still then would the goal be to get more voter turnout or because I guess I'm trying to wrap my head around how you run an election the percentage of the voters who vote vote from that
percentage 35% of them voted for the one candidate and that was the and that one won from a dem just a straight line democracy Unless you're proposing to change the voting mechanism where you know with an approval voting piece you could then I could choose more than one
candidate then it's very possible that a candidate could break a 50% threshold. So I I'd be more concerned about how you'd want to change the mechanism and maybe this isn't the form to have that discussion because I think this is the first time we've had kind of a
discussion in a couple years. >> So um yeah I'm I'm I'm listening is what my point I have. Yeah, >> maybe what we could if there's an interest that we'd like to look at it at least we could ask staff >> to just explore across Minnesota
if there's some different options out there that have been tried and if they've been successful because that's the other thing change to change is kind of dumb if you don't uh get a good goal out of good uh result out of it and maybe we do have to set a
goal at some point what we want to achieve. Do we want to get more v voter turnout? Do we want to get a higher percentage before somebody is elected to an office? That's all kind of up in the air right
now. I'm just throwing an idea out of is that something want we would like to explore and go from there. I I'm in favor of exploring and also exploring the idea of an approval
voting system just looking into it and understanding how it works and and then discussing. So, is there a motion to entertain having the staff like the city attorney and the city manager
do some research on this? um and maybe get back to the charter commission like within two months or something. Um >> we'll make the motion. This is Chris Well, two.
>> I'll second that. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> I. >> All right. So, we will ask the city attorney and the city manager to just do some research on what's happening across the state in regards to um voter turnout
and um maybe possibly change in the future. Yes. >> Um without a discussion in between, I'm sorry, I would have asked this before the vote. Um we're not looking at voter turnout. I believe we're looking at a stronger
sense of consensus among those votes cast. Thank you. About um developing a primary mechanism. It's hard for me to see a way around this. We want to encourage as many
viable candidates as possible, right? We want to encourage participation and um highest well I guess that's why we'd be turning it over to someone else to investigate for us.
>> Madam Chair, I I agree. I don't know if there is a solution. I don't know if it's really worth us spending a whole lot of time on it, but I think it might be worth poking into a little bit at least to see if there's a better way to
get a stronger consensus, especially on our elected leadership of our elected leadership on the council um is all I'm looking at. >> It doesn't hurt to investigate, you know, and to learn more about this whole process.
Um, I think what I would like to see is a much larger voter turnout, but how do you force people to go and vote, you know? So, >> Australia finds you if you don't. >> All right. Is there any other business
that we need to discuss? >> Being that there is none, is there a motion to adjurnn? >> So move. >> I'll second. Tracy Peters. >> All those in favor to adjourn, say I. I.
>> All right. So, thank you everybody for letting me be the chair. And next time it will be um the new officers and I look forward to seeing you next time and I would I would certainly would like to learn more about this whole voter
thing. So thank you for bringing that up Mr. Voxland. It's interesting. So >> should do >> once a year. I mean >> I mean yeah planning has to meet every month.